#i wrote.. skyrim fanfiction for some fucking reason

[bisexual-detectives]

I've seen a lot of "fanfiction is only tolerated because it's not monetised" takes recently and they're completely missing the point of why IP owners tolerate fan works.

Fanfiction inherently breaches copyright, whether you make money off of it or not. The reason why copyright owners tolerate fanfic is not because fanfiction writers don't make any money for writing it but because fandom is insanely profitable for IP owners. Fandom gives the original works value those corporations could never dream of creating on their own. Why is Skyrim the one video game that won't die? Because Bethesda enables and encourages modding, releasing modding tools and even enabling mods on playstation, something basically unheard of. This allows gamers to change anything they don't like about Skyrim, personalise it to their preferences and add endless new content so it never gets boring.

Fanfiction does exactly the same for other mediums: it lets fans fix whatever they perceive as mistakes, personalise the content to their preferences and it adds endless new content. If you watch an obscure TV show that doesn't have a fandom, how invested are you going to stay long term when there are no gifs for you to reblog and no fics to read? And in contrast, how invested are you going to stay if you watch a different show which has endless fan content to consume?

Fan works keep media relevant, generate free promotion and create deeply invested consumers. Why can Bethesda keep releasing full price Skyrim reworks for every conceivable platform - that people keep paying for? Because mods keep people invested in Skyrim. Why are people buying stupid official merch for ancient franchises like Harry Potter? Because fandom keeps those franchises alive.

Fandom is only "non profit" for the fans. For IPs, fandom is free labour that generates absurd monetary value - that's the real reason they allow or even encourage it. Disney and Netflix won't suddenly start going after AO3 because some people made $15 on kofi lol AO3 is making them way too much money. Also, going after fandom in the age where internet fandom drives media consumption would be a PR disaster. Harry Potter was the first big fandom to be born into the internet era and Warner Brothers learned very quickly to stop cease and deceasing fansites when the fandom boycotted their HP products in return.

Don't delude yourself into thinking that multi-billion corporations wouldn't have fanfic sites shut down in a second if fanfic was inconvenient for them in any way. They allow fanfic because it's fucking profitable for them and they don't care if fan writers make some change along the way.

If you want to learn more, here's a video essay about copyright and fandom I co-wrote and here are the academic works we used as sources: "Exploiting Fandom: How the Media Industry Seeks to Manipulate Fans" and "Fandom as Free Labor".

#i have no stakes in this i don't read or like fanfiction i'm just annoyed when people misunderstand how fandoms actually work #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic #fandom #copyright #mine

[possumteeths]

another day another useless fanfiction

#i wrote.. skyrim fanfiction for some fucking reason #i dont know #abt the himbo werewolf #skyrim #its 2021 and i literally have no control over my life at all and got possessed by a demon that forced me to write skyrim fanfiction

[kitty-bandit]

☆Writer Asks☆

This was a ‘Get to know the author’ meme on twitter. Originally, you were supposed to answer a question if you got so many likes, but screw that. Let me just answer this ALL for you and tag some of my writing friends.

1. Explain your AO3 handle.

KittyBandit has been my handle forever. It’s rather self-explanatory. I like cats and I’m a bandit. I’m also possibly a cat? And perhaps I will steal myself one day...

2. Favorite fanfiction trope?

Do I have to pick just one? I suppose if we’re going to pick the trope I’m utterly devastated by every damn time, it’s Friends to Lovers Slow Burn.

3. Favorite place to write?

I prefer to write at home where I can be comfortable and have access to my teapot. Specifically, I like writing in my room, because I feel like it’s the best place I can turn off the rest of the world and focus. (Though, I do wish I had an office for that. Writing in bed can sometimes lead to me just falling asleep at the computer. XD)

4. Favorite ships in your current fandom?

Current fandom that I have my grubby little fingers in is D.Gray-man, and as always, I’m on the Laven train. But I’m also here for Lucky, Lucky Poker, Yulma, and a few rarepairs that have my heart at the moment. (Particularly Lavi x Link and Tyki x Alma, the latter thanks to @faeriexqueen)

5. What are your steps to get into the Writing Mood™?

I have to set up my writing area (either in my bed, on the couch, or at the dining room table) with my laptop, pillows, charge cords and (if it’s winter) a blanket and my fingerless knit gloves. I’ll make tea (either green or oolong, unsweetened), and I’ll light a candle or two to set the mood. When I’m ready to go, I put on some music or nature sounds (currently I’m heavily into the Skyrim SDTK or Emancipator for my writing music) and get to it!

6. What program/app do you use to write?

I use Scrivener on my laptop and googledocs on my phone.

7. List your zodiac sign, favorite ice cream flavor, Hogwarts House, and your opinion on pineapple pizza.

Scorpio/ Green tea ice cream/ Hufflepuff/ and pineapple never belongs on a pizza you heathens.

8. Link us a fanfic that made you cry.

I’m not one to actually cry over fanfics, but The Hurricane in His Veins by @saltyshiro actually did have one scene that made me cry when I read it. It was so emotional and hit me so deeply that I just broke down.

9. Link us a fanfic that made you laugh.

Okay, I know I said this before, but A Rough Patch by @errantknightess actually had me crying I was laughing so hard.

10. Link us a fanfic that left you in complete awe at the writer’s ability.

To be fair, there are a lot of people I admire, their writing far superior to my own. But one fic that hit me hard a while ago was Almost There by @errantknightess. I fell in love with that fic and her writing style instantly.

11. List your kinks.

Uhhhh all of them? We might be here all night. XD

But for real: A/B/O Dynamics; Dirty Talk; Mpreg; Breeding Kink; Dom/Sub Dynamics; Biting (as if the million vamp fics I’ve written wasn’t proof enough of that one xD); Roleplay; Sex Pollen; etc, etc...

12. How do you come up with your ideas?

They... just come to me??? Honestly, I will get inspired by almost anything. It usually has to do with something happening to me or a friend. (I wrote Bibliophile because I was stuck at work during a snow storm.) Sometimes I see a prompt and delve into a new AU from there. Sometimes I hear a song and the lyrics might hit me deeply. Sometimes I’m just talking with friends online and get inspired by the direction our fandom chat takes. Inspiration can really come from anywhere.

13. How do you implement said ideas into a cohesive narrative?

Oh boy. This is a hard question. I guess once the idea is set, I figure out the plot? I mean, it is definitely more difficult than that, but that’s basically it? I will think of where I want the story to go, major plot points, the ending, which characters I want in it, and then when I have that all floating around in my brain, I write out my plotline from there, filling in gaps where I can and working out plotholes.

14. What are your working on right now? Share a little snippet or a description.

Currently, I’m working on what has been affectionately dubbed the “Delinquent AU” for NaNoWriMo. It’s a HS AU with Lucky Poker and Yulma as the main pairings. Here’s a little snippet from what I have written so far (obviously unbeta’d):

As the week progressed, it became apparent how dull public school was. Lavi hadn’t realized it until the first few days passed, but the slow, monotonous rhythm never seemed to change. Day in and day out, he had the same classes, the same lectures, and saw the same people. Even then, he could’ve gotten over  it if the work was not so dreadfully boring. Nothing his teachers gave him challenged him in the least—the only exception being art class, where he came to the painful realization that he couldn’t draw a stick figure to save his life. Alma had attempted to help him, but the more they tried, the more frustrated Lavi had become. He would’ve quit the damned class if it wouldn’t make Alma cry for ditching Kanda and them. The only intriguing thing about school thus far had been his interactions with the bold candy thief—Allen Walker.

Allen never spoke to him, but Lavi would’ve been a fool not to realize he’d caught his attention. He always entered the classroom just as the bell rang, rarely bothering to bring his textbooks or even a writing utensil, and each time he sat next to Lavi, he gave the redhead an amused look. Lavi was convinced the only reason Allen had even acknowledged his presence was because of their interaction at the convenience store, as fleeting as it had been.

Lavi had done his best to ignore it, but a bored mind liked to play games with itself. And the current game playing in Lavi’s head was a repeat of “What the fuck is Allen Walker’s deal?”

Tagging: @errantknightess; @faeriexqueen; @titty-now-titty-later; @candy-crackpot; @spiccan; @kashyurio; @silentium-nightshade; @tykipomme; @thefearofcod; @ninfia; And anyone else who would like to do this!

#personal #kitty bandit writes fanfiction #ask memes

[solienna]

i was going to be like 'all of them' but that would be mean so instead im 'just' going to ask for 1, 4, 8, 10, 13, 17, 21, 28, 32, 33, 35, 47, 50,

putting this under a readmore bc meander!!! you spoil me

01: When did you first start writing?      okay i actually am gonna give you two answers to this question bc i feel like i started writing at two periods in my life. the first time i actually started writing was in third grade because i had like. the BEST third grade teacher, he was awesome and in my eyes was like, the best artist i had ever met just bc he had a basic grasp of how to draw shit and i absolutely didn’t and still don’t, every time teachers tell me to draw things for an assignment i lose ten years off my lifespan but anyways!! off topic. he really encouraged creativity and i was in a class with one of my friends, his name was like john or michael or something, and i would write and he would illustrate (i thought he was the second-best artist i had ever met just bc he also had a basic grasp on drawing and i still didn’t). i wrote about like. this dog and his name was super yuff and got his powers through lightning that struck him and he just flew around and like. idk he did a lot of shit, i still have the stories i wrote. but like i was DEDICATED to this character and so was my illustrator friend. i remember one weekend i was just sitting on my bed with a bunch of folded up printer paper just writing about this dumb superhero dog that somehow ended up in like the halo universe bc even back then i was obsessed with video games. that was the first thing i actually WROTE.         HOWEVER. after third grade i just took a huge break. like not intentionally, of course. i loved writing but i didn’t know it was my THING yet. i didn’t really have a thing yet, it was only third grade ok. HOWEVER. when i transitioned into middle school that’s when i picked up writing again. i don’t even remember why. all i know was that my dad had bought skyrim and he was playing it and just by watching it i LOVED it. i adored the history behind the game and i just loved the graphics, and when i started playing the game i got HOOKED. stayed up entire nights just doing random side quests for npcs and feeling a huge goddamn hero, let me save this talking dog from the wrath of his daedric master nbd, just doing my job, let me set all these beehives on fire and get mauled by a bear, cool cool. and one day i just? was like wow, why don’t i write a story about it! about my skyrim OC going to solstheim and falling in love with the aloof nd really sarcastic and interesting teldryn sero (who still remains one of my favorite skyrim npcs to this day)!! and i thought i was Hot Shit too, i thought i fucking invented fanfiction. and then i found wattpad and then that was that folks, i got hooked on writing all over again and i still am

04: Have you ever thrown a book across the room?      mmmm not that i can recall? i’m not really a book-thrower, i’m more of a book-holder. like if something really shocking happens in a book i feel like i’d be more likely to hug it close to my chest than throw it08: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten?      tbh pretty much everything you’ve told me meander!! i don’t really think i’d be writing that much if not for you. honestly you flatter me on a daily basis with your compliments about my really pretentious use of metaphors in like every single paragraph and basically just with your interest in all of my writing projects even for fandoms you’re not technically in!! i’ve never really been told by anyone that i’ve got a way with words and when you told me that i was like wow!! people actually like the shit i write, that’s cool! that’s real cool my guy10: What’s your biggest writer pet-peeve?      honestly i THRIVE on feedback. i took a huge writing break like a few years ago just because i couldn’t WRITE the way i used to. to just sit down and spew out 5000 word chapters on a whim wasn’t something i could feasibly DO anymore. i thought i lost my touch or something but it was honestly just because i didn’t get enough feedback. again shout out to u meander because you legit FLOODED me with feedback on like. everything. i’m still over the moon about half the shit you’ve told me like a year ago. tbh half the reason i yell in the tags is because creators read the tags!! they really do!! so i wanna leave some positive feedback for them because i want them to know that i liked whatever it was that they made!!

13: What’s your favorite writing quote?       it’s not really a writing quote but!! “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” -C.S. Lewis21: Do you outline?      i honestly burst out laughing when i saw this question, i do not in any way whatsoever outline anything bc apparently i hate myself. ok the last time i outlined a story was like four years ago and it worked…. really well…… so for some reason i was like wow how about we not make our lives easier. no outlining our fics we ruin our own writing projects like men

28: Which do you find hardest: the beginning, the middle, or the end?      everything, everything is hard, i can’t write in a linear fashion. nah but tbh i feel like it’s the middle? like what do you even do. what is the middle all about. i’ve never met her32: How do you feel about friends and close relatives reading your work?      ABSOLUTELY NOT. get them away. i am very protective of my writing bc it’s personal to me. like i don’t want y’all reading my shit and then going up to me in real life thinking you know all my secrets bc if u read my shit you WILL know all my secrets, i painstakingly pour my heart into everything i write because in everything i do, i try REALLY REALLY hard. if i let u read my writing it’s a show of trust33: Are you interested in having your work published?      in its current state? probably not!! maybe later on down the road would be nice, but i’ve still got a lot to learn //side-eyes all my failed attempts at witty dialogue35: What’s your favorite time of day for writing?      nighttime. like dead of the night, i’m in bed with my phone and should be asleep right now but instead i’m gonna grab my laptop and fucking dump out all the words in my brain onto this word document. other than that i honestly just write during school a lot? like when we get free time i’m either studying for a test or writing.47: If you could steal one character from another author and make then yours, who would it be and why?      i want to take preston garvey out of bethesda’s hands. i’ve fallen in love with him over the course of just writing one scene for his character study. it’s the second-to-last scene (bc i cant write in linear order) and like. gosh. i want him to be my character, he’s so sad but also so optimistic and he tries so hard. ok those kinds of characters are my Type, i love characters who try really hard 

50: If you could live in any fictional world, which would it be?      i’m honestly not really sure? like hardcore i love daydreaming but it’s never about myself doing cool things, it’s about characters doing cool things. i kinda wanna meet an omnic tho, they seem really chill. maybe like live in falkreath? it’s really chill and pretty there and the mountains are really looming and i like that. imagine meeting the dragonborn and they buy out your entire store and then just leave. thats fucking crazy my guy

#ask #my post #about #meander #here's a wall of text meander i hope u enjoy it

[fitzonomy]

How do you approach worldbuilding?

Okay, full disclosure here but I’m still working on feeling comfortablewith my abilities in “world-building” (I put the phrase in quotes for a reasonI’ll explain in a moment). When I started writing fanfiction, I did so becauseI wanted to write but didn’t reallyfeel like I had the skills to develop something from scratch. But I had a fewcharacters and I was really into playing Skyrim at the time. So, I thought, “MaybeI’ll just start out writing a journal for Rook in Skyrim.” Rook was a characterI thought I had a good-enough handle on (spoiler alert: I didn’t and, boy, do Isometimes STILL pay for it) and I thought sticking with the Dragonborn DLCwould be a really easy story to chart a beginning, a middle, and an end for acharacter I didn’t have to build from the ground up or build an entire world ora story. A diary for a character seemed like a good start.

Rook of Skyrimquickly became not a journal (althoughin the first couple of chapters, you can still see where it started out assuch). There are probably still some of the very first drafts on a Skyrim forumsomewhere (that I just never bothered deleting because who cares). Whilewriting in this older style though, all ofthe characters started yelling at me (“I don’t sound like that!” or “I see how it is—I’m just a cardboard cut-out to put hereas a convenient thing to mention. Fuck you too.”).  So, while I’ve feel I’ve gotten better atdialogue and the like, world-building is still something I keep floaters onfor. That’s not to say I’ve not tried my hand at world-building (Cognitiva Uprising had eleven chaptersbefore I sort of put it aside. I don’t think it’s hosted anywhere currently,but it was something that I have a beginning, middle, and end for. There arestrong characters. The world was just a bit weaker than I wanted it). Fanfiction is basically the way in which I practice small-scale world-buildinguntil I can get a handle on it. With something like The Elder Scrolls (althoughat one time I also wrote for Dragon Age so I think that would work well inaddition to Fallout), big events exist and some details but thegames don’t often give you mechanisms for why the world is the way it is a goodamount of the time. It’s easy to build a world and populate it but it’llbe super flat if you’re looking to build a narrative that has some richness toit. For a story like Thistle Do Nicely,I don’t have to build a world—or atleast worry about the mechanisms behind why it is the way it is. It’s set inthe reality we have first-hand experience with. I don’t have to explain howcollege works in Thistle Do Nicely. IHAVE to do work in Relentless toexplain the academic systems of knowledge on a number of levels: an individualstudent’s progress, dynamics of an individual institution, how a particularinstitution interacts with local government/state government, and how otherinstitutions view one another (to be fair, I also use Raven’s Song to do some of this work). We do not have firsthand experiencefor the world of The Elder Scrolls. We dohave firsthand experience for what issues concern universities in ourworld.WHEW. That was really long-winded. Why did I put “world-building” in quotesabove? Because I feel that it the phrase is often used as an inefficient proxyfor “external environment.” I would classify developing characters as internalworld-building and building the environment around a character as externalworld building. I think we could then classify these even further (e.g.interpersonal relationships as being an “ecosystem,” a character’s interactionswith the physical environment as being “embodied world-building,” etc etc) butit would detract from the point. Here’s what I’ve learned from my own experiences and approaches ofworld-building. The usual YMMV and these are from my perspective und so weiter:

Don’t build worlds off of our currentworld’s assumptions. I don’t care if you are writing a modern day romance set in the United States, take allthe assumptions you have and put ‘em in a box because you’re gonna need to dosome hardcore reassessment about “the way things are.” For example, compulsoryheteronormativity isn’t just a story we hear when looking at the “usual”romantic comedy but also things like a “socially-acceptable” transgendernarrative that looks like “I am a woman in a man’s body.” It’s a narrative thatconforms to the expectations and assumptions that heteronormativity asserts. Inhomosexual relationships, it is common to hear, “So who’s the man and who’s thewoman?” Even beyond hot topic issues (such as gender and sexuality), there alsoexists assumptions about how communication works (usually “data transferbetween two people”), how social interactions work, and even how someone thinksabout the world (we don’t all interact with the world in the same way, we don’tall have the same mental dialogue with ourselves etc etc).

Become an expert at thetop-down/bottom-up analyses of your world. “Ash,” you sigh. “What the fuck does that mean?” Here’s an example:

A lot of writing advice with world-building has writersthink about what the lay of the land is. So, is the setting on an island? Alarge, land-locked continent? Near mountains? That’s fine. But I think whatthen happens is a disconnect between thinking about the land to thinking aboutsomething such as governmental policy or import/export mechanisms. When I sayto think about your world from a top-down perspective, I’m asking you to thinkabout larger phenomenon and behavior of the characters and then how we cantrace that back to smaller elements in the world. For example, if you statethat in your world the local government has always had strict policies in placethat regulate the hunting of certain wildlife, then it’s also important to knowwhy that is from smaller, foundationelements. Perhaps the particular wildlife upon which the regulations are enforcedare a species that in some seasons are superimportant for soil recovery (idk like maybe they have a jacked upmetabolism and poop a lot). THEN you might look further down and see, “Ah,well, these people would want a quicker turn around on soil recovery duringseason X because farming season Y is right after that time.” And so on. Youkeep taking this large-scale, overarching observation (strict rules on huntingduring a particular season) and then keep breaking down the whys and hows until you’ve got a good idea for why things are the way they are. (obvs I like repeating myself). But what about a bottom-up approach? Let’s take something like a friend groupfor this example. Suppose you have three characters that are really goodfriends (A, B, and C because I’m so creative). If friend A says somethinghurtful to friend B, then not only will friend B’s feelings become hurt butalso friend C will have a/some reaction(s): be angry at friend A, besympathetic to friend B, agree with friend A, not give a fuck about either A orB because it ain’t their business, etc. We’ve got individual elements A, B, andC but we can now trace this one incident like a ripple effect. A, B, and C havelives outside of their relationship so how does this effect their otherrelationships? Work? Family? Etc etc. Let’s take our Poop Factory species fromthe top-down approach to understanding the whysof a world. Think about the very first time the local government first passedthe regulation. What did they notice? Well, sometimes the crops would be stableenough to sustain people but then other years it was absolute shit. You canpretend one of the Top Poop Scientists of the Country (I’m sure you’d give thema better name) was also like, “Hey guys, I think I’m noticing that on years inwhich the crops are better, there are more Poop Factories around.” And on andon. Now, is it important to describe all of this to your readers? Absolutely not unless it is important to the story. If it’snot, then you’ve got a good working knowledge that you can explicitly describeinside and out—AND THAT will shine through in your world.

Consistent, tinydetails matter. So, you’ve gotthe world, you’re an expert in it, and you’ve got a pretty solid idea of yourcharacters. Just don’t forget to include the tiny details in the story! Treat thislike seasoning on food. Too much will ruinthe balance (garlic is the exception in the food analogy, so think of garlic inplace of “good grammar” because you can’t have enough of that).

 Culture andreligion: usually a hot topic to bring up in any world-building how-tothat can be found via google. I would add to this simply by referring to the “Don’tbuild a world off of this world’s assumptions” advice. Religions are usuallydeity-based but one should think about how deities are interpreted/ARE in a particularworld. A really good example of this is the pantheon in Bastion (rpg by Supergiant Games). Each god seems to represent theextreme ends of a particular spectrum (e.g. health and atrophy) and would grantfollowers one or the other with no rhyme or reason. In the game, this plays outin two ways. In the world, there are temples but you get the feeling thatthings aren’t quite stable (inreference to the deity impulses, not the actualworld that is literally fallingapart from under your feet). In gameplay, the main character can worshipone god at a time. If you choose to worship the god I was referencing above(health/atrophy), protag will get +5% on experience and currency earned in eachfight but all enemies become resistant to physical attacks. This is a unique mechanismby which deity creation drives the mechanisms by which religion is establishedand how culture conducts itself (if we are all subject to the god’s whims, nomatter how deep our belief and devotion, how would that come out in culture?).You might have entire towns where nowhere daresbe anything less than a devout follower of a particular god.

But I’ve done a bad thing and lumped these two ideastogether. In actuality, culture gets played out in a number of ways: food,medicine, geography, clothes, dialect, how to conduct oneself based on powerdynamics, etc. If you’ve decided to world-build on an island, I bet thatculture is going to differ a lot than if you’ve decided mountain valleys areyour thing. The difference will probablybe reflected in the geography by which characters are bound. Meals willlook different and because they look different, you might see a difference inwhat is considered polite ways to eat food or to conduct one’s self at a meal. If you’ve got specific questions about the myriad of ways culture is going tobe built into the world, hit me up. I haven’t even touched tool-use anddevelopment!Okay, I’ve written a lot so that’s it for now!